James Murdoch faces police probe over evidence

CLAIMS that James Murdoch knew three years ago that phone hacking at the News of the World was not confined to a single “rogue” reporter have been referred to the police.

Labour MP Tom Watson said he was contacting Scotland Yard after two former senior executives at the paper publicly contradicted James Murdoch’s evidence to the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee earlier this week.

If the allegations by former News of the World editor Colin Myler and former legal manager Tom Crone were correct, he said, Murdoch Jnr could face investigation for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

“I think this is the most significant moment of two years of investigation into phone hacking,” he told the BBC.

“If their version of events is accurate, it doesn’t just mean that Parliament has been misled, it means the police have another investigation on their hands.”

Prime Minister David Cameron said Murdoch had “questions to answer in Parliament”, and suggested that the management of the Murdochs’ media empire was now “an issue for the shareholders”.

James Murdoch, the head of News Corp in Europe and Asia, said he stands by the evidence he gave when he appeared with his father Rupert Murdoch before the committee on Tuesday.

He told MPs he had been unaware of an email suggesting hacking at the paper was more widespread than had been admitted when he signed off a reported £700,000 out-of-court settlement with Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, in 2008.

But in a statement on Thursday, Myler and Crone said James Murdoch was “mistaken” and that they had informed him of the email, which had been obtained by Taylor’s lawyers.

Watson, a member of the committee and a leading critic of the Murdochs, said that if Myler and Crone were right, James Murdoch would have “bought the silence” of Taylor.

“It shows that he not only failed to report a crime to the police, but because there was a confidentiality clause involved in the settlement, it means that he bought the silence of Gordon Taylor and that could mean that he is facing investigation for perverting the course of justice,” he said.

Scotland Yard confirmed it had received a letter from Watson asking detectives working on the inquiry into phone hacking to investigate. A spokesman said that it was “being considered”.

Meanwhile, Cameron, speaking on a visit to Warwickshire, said News International — News Corp’s British newspaper publishing arm — needed to clear up the “mess” that had been created by the scandal.

“Clearly, James Murdoch has got questions to answer in Parliament and I am sure that he will do that. And clearly, News International has got some big issues to deal with and a mess to clear up,” he said.

Labour MP Chris Bryant, who is taking legal action over claims that his phone was hacked, sought to step up the pressure on the company with a call for the suspension of Rupert and James Murdoch from their roles in News Corp.

In further developments, the Law Society disclosed that solicitors had been warned by police that their phones might have been hacked by the News of the World.